The present proposal is designed to pursue the possiblity that the hypothalamic area of the rat brain controls basic sensorimotor functions such as reflex orientation of the head toward sensory stimuli. It is well established that the hypothalamus controls motivated behaviors such as feeding and attack: electrical excitation of the lateral hypothalamus can evoke these behaviors, while damage to this same region can produce a loss of feeding and killing. Several lines of evidence, including our own work, now suggest (1) that the lateral hypothalamus can control sensory fields from which head-orientational reflexes can be elicited, and (2) that the lateral hypothalamus controls feeding and attack in part by modulating these reflexes. I propose to examine whether another region of the hypothalamus, the ventromedial hypothalamus also controls feeding and aggressive behaviors by modulating sensorimotor functions. Secondly, I propose to study whether brain catecholamine systems - the nigrostriatal dopamine bundle and the ventral noradrenergic bundle are importantly involved in mediating these hypothalamic influences over reflex functions.